Around October 10, 1899

In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...

Southern Negroes were mostly aligned with the Republican Party through the 1870's. In the 1880s Republicans began to lose hold on their Negro supporters. In October of 1883 the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, and after the compromise of 1877 Godkin decreed the impossibility of incorporating a Negro into a system of government for which you and I would have...

The Huntsville chamber of commerce called for the Southern Industrial Convention to discuss southern industrial conditions. The convention was attended by all southern states. The convention lasted for six days allotting time for the discussion of the industrial condition of each state individually. Booker T. Washington spoke on the impact of racial relations on southern industry, and Senator...

The charges were grave and the punishment severe. On Wednesday, October 6, 1897, North Carolina Governor Daniel L. Russell dismissed Otho Wilson, the railroad commissioner, for conspiring with the Southern Railway Company to promote his own economic interest. Wilson did this by appealing to the railway company to stop at his hotel in order to increase the eating-house's business. According to...

Water is a necessity; however, white southerners knew that indoor plumbing was only a nicety. As the white administrators of the Paris Mountain Water Company drafted new rules of their newly acquired waterworks, they established regulations to prevent or oppress most African Americans in their struggle for survival in the post-Reconstruction era southern United States. For example, as a newly reunited...

The French Canadian fishermen of Belle Isle pull in their catch. The seine net, hauled in by canoes, horsepower, and manpower, is 1,600 feet long and twelve feet deep, full of black bass, muskallonge, whitefish, and other species. All these men care about, however, are the whitefish. Their bounty greatly varies each seine haul; some hold four whitefish, some hold two hundred. They used to not care...

On September 6, 1899 Secretary of State John Hay wrote the Open Door Notes policy based on the open door principles and the preservation of Chinese integrity. The aim of this policy was to create equal opportunity within spheres of influence and among major world powers. Chinese customs tariffs were to be administered equally, there was to be no interference with treaty ports, and lastly railroad...

The South was a region characterized by extreme violence following the civil war, much of which resulted from racial tensions. The flagrant racism found throughout the south explains why the majority of murders were committed by white men against black victims. However, many killings of blacks remained unreported as they often went unpunished. All murder cases in which the victim was white were...

The prevalence of homicide in the south increased greatly in the second half of the nineteenth century. Manslaughter, murder, and mutilation took the place of duels in the old south. Violence in Virginia became increasingly commonplace, especially in rural areas. Descriptions of black men on wanted posters reflected racial prejudice in the south.<br /><br />Harrison Thompson was a...

In 1899 Bradley Tyler Johnson posted a flyer titled For lease on Ninety-Nine Year Terms that advertised a 99-year lease on his property, the Woodlands, located in Amelia County. Johnson had a very specific vision for the property; I want a colony of ten families from the Northwest to settle here, he wrote. Traditionally Southside Virginia, including Amelia County, had a rural background with very...